Greater return on women's enterprise (GROWE) : final report and recommendations of the women's enterprise task force. SEEDA, women’s enterprise task force.

This Women’s Enterprise Task Force (WETF) report, Greater Return On Women’s Enterprise (GROWE), sets out the economic case for women’s enterprise and advises partners and stakeholders how to achieve a greater economic return from investment in women’s enterprise. The Task Force has framed its recommendations to maximise existing investment and resources. We are mindful of the Government’s Business Support Simplification Programme and the effect the recession will continue to have on public spending, and so suggest that relevant Government departments and private sector organisations work together to streamline support and make best use of existing investment. In providing thought leadership to increase the quantity, scalability and success of women’s enterprise in the UK, the WETF has informed the national agenda on women’s enterprise for the last three years, concentrating its efforts on five specific Pillars: 1. gender-disaggregated business data 2. female-friendly business support 3. access to finance and technology 4. supplier diversity and procurement 5. strategic influencing and awareness raising. WETF highlights of the past three years include paving the way for a Business Link national data disaggregation methodology whilst influencing and shaping the establishment, direction and implementation of Aspire, a £12.5m women’s co-investment fund to support high-growth women-owned businesses. Alongside this, the WETF has played an important role in raising awareness of the economic case for women’s enterprise and the potential of female entrepreneurs in aiding the UK’s economic recovery. Perhaps most importantly, the WETF met with the Prime Minister and saw important policy developments taken forward in the Government’s Enterprise Strategy of March 2008. In 2009 the WETF contributed to the enterprise knowledge bank by producing two research reports into women’s enterprise: Impact of the Recession on Women’s Enterprise and Myths and Realities of Women’s Access to Finance. The Task Force welcomes progress made by the Ethnic Minority Business Task Force (EMBTF) in the advocacy of complementary areas which include the need for access to finance, disaggregated data and supplier diversity. Much of the groundwork for the WETF’s work was laid out in the Government’s 2003 publication, A Strategic Framework for Women’s Enterprise. In 2003, it was estimated that women constituted around 27% of self-employed people in the UK, and that only 12-14% of businesses were majority-owned by women (compared to 28% in the USA). From the Strategic Framework for Women’s Enterprise, to the establishment of the WETF and the Enterprise Strategy, Government has shown the importance that it attaches to women in enterprise and its recognition of the increased economic benefits women can contribute to UK plc. This must be even more important in emerging from recession. Recently, Government has a produced a policy statement, Building Britain’s Future: New Industry, New Jobs (NINJ), which sets out Government’s vision for economic recovery and growth by targeted intervention aimed at hightech, high-growth firms. The WETF has several recommendations for how enterprising women can take advantage of these interventions. Enterprise has a significant role to help women remain economically active and increase the productivity and international competitiveness of the UK. Recent figures from 2009 show that women, who make up 46% of the workforce, now constitute nearly 29% of the self-employed in the UK (up 2 percentage points). 15% of the 4.8 million enterprises in the UK are now majority-led by women. The longer-term quantitative targets outlined in the Framework included women accounting for 40% of customers using Government sponsored business support services; and women-owned businesses accounting for 18-20% of the UK total. Government has gone some way towards achieving these targets. Today, women-owned businesses account for around one third of Business Link customers, a major increase on the 22.3% or nearly 150,000 women customers in Q1 of 2005/6. However, overall progress has been very slow and neither of the Framework targets set for completion by 2006 has yet been met. More work needs to be done to address this and the other issues facing women’s enterprise today. This report examines how to further increase the current £70 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) and £130 billion turnover annual contribution made by women’s enterprise to the UK economy. Recent figures suggest that 900,000 more businesses would be created if the UK achieved the same levels of female entrepreneurship as in the US, resulting in an additional £23 billion GVA to the UK economy, thus largely closing the productivity gap with the US.1 In Britain alone, 150,000 extra businesses would be created per annum if women started businesses at the same rate as men.2 This is especially pertinent in this time of recession. With effective, targeted support, increasing the number of women entrepreneurs will be an important factor in driving economic recovery

Prudence in International Strategy: From Lawyerly to Post-Lawyerly

The quality of prudence has long been associated with lawyers, including when they have served in quite broad capacities. Indeed, for an important period in 20th century U.S. history, one of the most distinctive contributions of a certain type of lawyer, referred to here in shorthand as “the New York lawyer-statesman,” was the application of prudence not to the practice of law as such, but to the broader domain of U.S. international strategy and the exercise of the broader quality of “lawyerly prudence.”Drawing on a few discrete chapters in U.S. history, this article recounts and interprets the high-water mark of this New York lawyer-statesmen tradition around WWI and WWII, while also arguing that the circumstances that shaped, allowed, and even encouraged such contributions to international strategy by this type of lawyer during the first two-thirds of the 20th century had largely run their course by the final third of “the American century.” This leaves a pressing puzzle to be solved. On the one hand, international strategy remains as much in need of prudence now as ever before—arguably more so because of the absence from the scene for the last couple of generations of the lawyerly prudent type. But because New York lawyers can no longer serve as the primary exemplars of lawyerly prudence in this context, we must now turn elsewhere for reliable sources of prudence. The article concludes that to do so we now have no choice but to unpack the elements of the old lawyerly prudence and encourage their self-conscious adoption by a broader group of citizen-statespeople who have the right kind of intellectual training and real-world experience to be able to develop and exercise prudence of the old lawyerly kind, even though many or most of such people will not be lawyers

Means of transportation and its effect on eye care seeking behaviour of patients in a rural setting

Background: The observation of the frequency with which patients presented at the outreach clinic at Giwa General hospital with complications resulting from intervention by traditional healers led to an investigation regarding their preference for western or traditional solutions to eye ailments alongside the distance necessary to travel from home to the General hospital (outreach center) and the means of transport necessary to get there. Methods: A total of 348 patients were seen over a6month period from January 2002- June 2002. These patients were interviewed using a simple questionnaire, the setting being the outreach eye clinic, Giwa general hospital, Giwa local Government Area of Kaduna State In Northern Nigeria. Results: A total of 348 patients interviewed were found to use various means of transportation when seeking western medical or traditional medical assistance. Some had to use several modes of transport in order to arrive at the outreach eye clinic. Patients were seen from six districts in Giwa Local government Area. 27 patients (7.8%) lived less than 5km from the outreach center, while 56 (16.1%) lived 5-10 Km from the outreach center. 86 (24.7%) patients lived 11-15km away while 96 (27.6%) live 16-20km from the outreach center. A total of83 (23.9%) had their homes greater than 20km away. Out of 348 patients, 233 preferred o seek western medication and they had to use several modes of transportation including trekking, motor vehicles, canoe, bicycle, and motorcycle to access medical eye care. The others preferred to seek traditional solutions to their problems. Conclusion: It is clear majority of patients are aware of the benefits of western medicine and seek to access it. Nevertheless, the inconvenience of certain/necessity to take multiple modes of transport to do so may result in lack of uptake of western medical facilities leading patients to seek alternative medical attention close to home. Key Words: Transportation, eye seeking behaviour, rural setting Annals of African Medicine Vol.3(2) 2004: 83-8

Emma Lazarus: Voice of Liberty

Emma Lazarus is best remembered for her poem, The New Colossus. However, in a recent touring exhibit the visited Drake Memorial Library, her fascinating life and experiences as a Jewish immigrant highlight the late 19th century immigrant experience, much of which is still relevant today. Many groups sought entrance to the United States during Emma’s lifetime for a variety of reasons, from escaping war and famine, to religious persecution, to abject poverty. The outcome for our country was incredibly positive, as these immigrants or their descendants made immeasurable advances for the country in arts, politics and sciences. The United States today continues to be a magnet for those seeking a better life, and as these new immigrants are assimilated into our society, it can have only positive outcomes for our culture as a whole. We must keep in mind that most of us came of immigrant stock, and rather than isolating ourselves or the newcomers, embrace the fresh ideas and news customs they bring with them

Developmental regulation of expression of the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) multigene family during mouse spermatogenesis

Expression of the Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH) genes during various stages of spermatogenesis was studied by using a combination of Northern blot analyses and in situ hybridization techniques. These studies have indicated that developmentally programmed expression of all three functional LDH genes occurs during differentiation of germ cells. The LDH/C (ldh-3) gene was expressed exclusively during meiosis and spermiogenesis, beginning in leptotene/zygotene spermatocytes and continuing through to the elongated spermatids. LDH/C (ldh-3) gene expression was accompanied by transient expression of the LDH/A (ldh-1) gene in pachytene spermatocytes and round spermatids. The LDH/B (ldh-2) gene was expressed mainly in Sertoli and spermatogonial cells. By using somatic cell hybrids, the LDH/C (ldh-3) gene has been mapped to mouse chromosome 7, establishing that it is syntenic with the LDH/A (ldh-1) gene locus. Experimental observations made in this study provide new insight into the order and sequence of events involved in the regulation of gene expression of the LDH gene family during spermatogenesis

Revised structural phase diagram of (Ba0.7Ca0.3TiO3)-(BaZr0.2Ti0.8O3)

The temperature-composition phase diagram of barium calcium titanate zirconate (x(Ba0.7Ca0.3TiO3)(1-x)(BaZr0.2Ti0.8O3); BCTZ) has been reinvestigated using high-resolution synchrotron x-ray powder diffraction. Contrary to previous reports of an unusual rhombohedral-tetragonal phase transition in this system, we have observed an intermediate orthorhombic phase, isostructural to that present in the parent phase, BaTiO3, and we identify the previously assigned T-R transition as a T-O transition. We also observe the O-R transition coalescing with the previously observed triple point, forming a phase convergence region. The implication of the orthorhombic phase in reconciling the exceptional piezoelectric properties with the surrounding phase diagram is discussed

Influence of chloride ions on progress of carbonation in concretes

Our infrastructure and environment face unprecedented challenges in addressing a low carbon future with limited natural resources, expanding population, increased pollution and climatic uncertainties. Adaptation and innovations must therefore play a vital role in addressing the anticipated wide ranging complex scenarios ahead. The environment in which construction materials will need to function will become far more complex and aggressive and hence a fundamental revaluation of the most appropriate materials for future infrastructure and environment will be required in order to tackle those challenges. This paper focuses on a class of construction materials, both old and new, based on magnesia (MgO). They include a wide range of materials from those that contain MgO as a small additive to those which solely consist of MgO. They include concrete with MgO as an expansive additive, pervious concrete, alkali-activated cements, magnesium phosphate cements, carbonated products, stabilising additives for ground improvement, self-healing additives, carbon capture and storage materials and binders for waste 105 and contaminated land remediation. Those materials and products offer a range of technical and sustainability benefits for a range of structural, geotechnical and environmental applications. The paper highlights the applications and benefits that would be achieved with magnesia-bearing construction materials

Conformal symmetry transformations and nonlinear Maxwell equations

We make use of the conformal compactification of Minkowski spacetime $M^{\#}$ to explore a way of describing general, nonlinear Maxwell fields with conformal symmetry. We distinguish the inverse Minkowski spacetime $[M^{\#}]^{-1}$ obtained via conformal inversion, so as to discuss a doubled compactified spacetime on which Maxwell fields may be defined. Identifying $M^{\#}$ with the projective light cone in $(4+2)$-dimensional spacetime, we write two independent conformal-invariant functionals of the $6$-dimensional Maxwellian field strength tensors -- one bilinear, the other trilinear in the field strengths -- which are to enter general nonlinear constitutive equations. We also make some remarks regarding the dimensional reduction procedure as we consider its generalization from linear to general nonlinear theories.Comment: 12 pages, Based on a talk by the first author at the International Conference in Mathematics in honor of Prof. M. Norbert Hounkonnou (October 29-30, 2016, Cotonou, Benin). To be published in the Proceedings, Springer 201